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Portrait made by Vitoriano Braga in 1914 (Folhas de Arte, 1924)

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t r a n s l a t e d b yj o h n p e d r o s c h w a r t z ,

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m i n i m a l a n t h o l o g y

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TA B L E OF C ON T E N T S

Editor’s preface • 11Translators’ preface • 13

F E R N A N D O P E S S OA

Sea. Morning. • 19Night • 21The Villager • 23Fountain • 25Sonnet VIII • 27Là ‑bas • 29Abdication • 31The Voice of God • 33Swamps • 35Barrel Organ • 37We were three… We were

three… • 39Slanting Rain • 43Reaper • 51O you who pluck the harp,

were I to kiss • 55

Saudade Dada • 57Some phantom’s hand, unseen,

undreamed, unbidden • 59Meantime • 61Each spoken word is spoken

by the dead • 63Painted • 65Song • 67To be, to feel, to think destroys • 69I dream, and who I am now

comes to naught • 71O Ibis, sacred bird of Nile • 73Gomes Leal • 75Faust at the Mirror • 77In the river, beneath the moon • 79His Mother’s Darling Boy • 81

© 2020, Jerónimo Pizarro and Edições tinta‑da‑china, Lda. Rua Francisco Ferrer, n.º 6 ‑A

1500 ‑461 LisboaTels.: 21 726 90 28/29

E‑mail: info@tintadachina.pt

www.tintadachina.pt

Title: Poetry — Minimal AnthologyOriginal title: Poesia —Antologia Mínima

Author: Fernando PessoaEdited by: Jerónimo Pizarro

Translated by: John Pedro Schwartz, with Robert N. SchwartzSeries directed by: Jerónimo Pizarro

Proofread by: Jordan B. JonesLayout: Tinta‑da‑china

Cover design: Tinta‑da‑china (V. Tavares)

First edition: February 2020

isbn: 978‑989‑671‑538‑0legal deposit: 467059/20

Navy • 85Whatever music, choose

the strain • 87They say? • 89Just over water’s sweep • 91I leave to both the blind

and deaf • 93In welling depths of deepest

thought • 97Autopsychography • 99Evade! That’s what I do • 101Initiation • 103From valley to mountain • 107Beyond the roses, Saki, you

who poured • 111This • 113Between my sleep and dream • 115Faust • 117I faked the one I was. So,

too, all fake • 121O meadow, when at last I die • 123Who knows if what we

think is not • 125

Counsel • 127When tired, we long to be

some other soul • 129This history you salvaged

from • 131O, Assunção, Assunção • 133“Little creek, oh little creek • 135Liberty • 137Oh poor little tyrant! • 141Blue, and blue, and blue,

the sea uncoils • 145Un Soir à Lima • 149The happy sun is shining • 163Coat of Arms: The Castles • 165Ulysses • 167Don Sebastian, King of

Portugal • 169The Infante • 171The Monster • 173Portuguese Sea • 177

A L B E RTO C A E I R O

The Keeper of Flocks • 181Before I had you • 191The appalling reality

of things • 193

If, after I die, they wish to write my biography • 197

R IC A R D O R E I S

Come sit beside me, Lydia, on the river’s bank • 201

Have nothing in your hands • 205The roses that grow in Adonis’s

gardens I love • 207From likeness borne to

distant gods • 209That ancient rhythm found

in feet unshod • 211

Your flower, and not the one you give, I want • 213

Almond herb that soothes the aching foot • 215

To be great, be whole; nothing yours • 217

Á LVA R O DE C A M P O S

Opiary • 221Come, most ancient, dark,

and spacious night • 231Maritime Ode • 237Salutation to Walt Whitman • 273

Lisbon Revisited (1923) • 281Ah, Margarida • 285Tobacco Shop • 289Straight‑Lined Poem • 297

OT H E R S

Dream • 301The Fall of the Titan • 303Justice • 305Metaphysical Origin of the

Count of Samodães • 307

Nunc est bibendum… • 309I • 311

Bibliography and notes • 312Biographical notes • 318

E DI TOR ’ S P R E FAC E

Going over this anthology—and there are so many of Fernando Pessoa, and so many more yet to be made!—I am surprised to discover that it could not have been compiled just a few years ago, since many of the poems remained unknown and the need existed for a better under‑standing of Pessoa’s personal archive and of other archives containing documents related to the Poet. Time is the real anthologist of an oeuvre, and this and other anthologies are but a contribution to that greater anthology—mere proposals attempting a happy cross between the poems that, in the words of Eduardo Lourenço, “the author of this anthology limited himself to choosing” and “those that, many years ago, chose him.” For Pessoa has already been anthologized by Lourenço and by so many other scholars, and today a Pessoan anthology is a dialogue with numerous others of its kind. Pessoa, always plural, grows more plural yet. One can only imagine how increasingly multiple he will become…

To propose an anthology of Pessoa’s poems is difficult, not only because every day brings with it a deeper understanding of the work of the author of Mensagem [Message], but also because Pessoa himself left immense plans for the publication of his poems, and because a more stable anthology already exists, namely, that constituted by the poems published in his lifetime. Those who do not limit themselves to col‑lecting the poems from a list drawn up by Pessoa—which can serve as a table of contents—or to publishing again what he published while alive, will end up, after many considerations, including some poems and excluding others. Further still, where the versions are multiple, they will have to decide which to adopt. The inclusion here of images of the selected poems is a way of sharing le goût de l’archive (Farge) and of silently conveying the challenges of editing Pessoa.

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This anthology required the scrutiny of the known versions of many poems and the revision of many transcriptions. In addition, each facsimile offers additional information about the edited poem (the orthography, for example) and, at times, facilitates the reading of other texts composed with the same materials. Now, this anthology, like Lourenço’s and others, aims to reach “mere enthusiasts” of Pessoa’s poetry, those unfamiliar with this poetry, those who have yet to form an opinion of it, those who bear rediscovering it, students, and those who still feel themselves to be students—like me, who, though I am (among other things) a professor, never stop learning with my students.

I recall having prepared some years ago, with Patricio Ferrari, an anthology of Pessoa’s English poetry and not really knowing who its target audience could be. Imagine my surprise when I learned that this anthology had been discovered by Júlio Resende (among others), who, after reading it, composed uninterruptedly, in an ecstasy whose nature he cannot define, the songs of the Alexander Search band. This anthology, dedicated to Júlio, also aspires to inspire numberless unsuspected readers.

Jerónimo Pizarro

T R A N S L ATOR S ’ P R E FAC E

Metrical equivalents between Portuguese and English poetry are bound to be inexact, since the one uses syllabic meter, the other accen‑tual‑syllabic. Still, rough equivalents are not difficult to find. Octo‑syllabic poems find equal counterparts in iambic tetrameter, with its eight‑syllable lines (cf. “Sea. Morning.”), and ballad stanza, with its alternation of tetrameter and trimeter, especially where the metrical feet vary between two‑syllable iambs and three‑syllable anapests (cf. “Reaper”). The versatile ballad stanza also suits pentasyllabic (cf. “In the river, beneath the moon”), hexasyllabic (cf. “I leave to both the blind and deaf”), and heptasyllabic poems (cf. “Song,” “O meadow, when at last I die”). Poems of seven‑syllable lines can be rendered in trim‑eter, as well, especially where anapests mingle with iambs (cf. “The Voice of God”). Poems of five‑syllable lines also lend themselves to a mix of dimeter and trimeter (cf. “Là‑bas”). One poem of Pessoa’s—a metrical curiosity consisting of one‑ to two‑syllable lines—inspired us to abandon accentual‑syllabic versification and compose our lines according to syllables, symmetrically arranged, rather than according to metrical feet (cf. “They say?”). In the great majority of our transla‑tions, then, we employed more or less obvious metrical equivalents.

Occasional changes to the structure of the original poems were, nonetheless, necessary. The difficulty of matching Pessoa’s dense patterns of rhyme forced us at times to relax the rhyme scheme, rhyming two rather than all three lines of a tercet (cf. “We were three… We were three…”) or the dialogue only rather than the whole poem (cf. “The Monster”) or two rather than all four lines of a quatrain (cf. “The Reaper,” “Song,” “I leave to both the blind and deaf,” “In the river, beneath the moon,” “Just over water’s sweep,” “In welling depths of deepest

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we sometimes shorten lines, by omitting the initial unstressed syllable, for either of the same two reasons (cf. “Sea. Morning.,” “Song”).

Where words can be pronounced either with one syllable or with two syllables, the reader should follow the demand of the rhythm. For example, in “Faust at the Mirror” being should be pronounced with one syllable; in “Nunc est bibendum…” being should be pro‑nounced with two syllables. Again, both toward in “We were three… We were three…” and flowers in “Counsel” should be pronounced with one syllable.

Occasionally, we inverted sentence structure, either to form a pleas‑ing sound or to avoid the monotony of repeated subject‑verb‑object sentence structures (cf. the opening line of “Slanting Rain” and the second line of the second stanza in “Saudade Dada”). Note that Pessoa himself employs inversion frequently in his poetry.

We retained the original title of “Saudade Dada” for its assonance and consonance, which are of a piece with that poem’s privileging of sound over sense. The sound poem’s dense weave of rhyme, both internal and terminal, necessitated the substitution of “Clovis and Chloe” for the original Portuguese names.

In the line “O world, / Beingly you I am me…,” in “The Voice of God,” we tried to capture the oddity of the original line.

We made no attempt at meter in translating Pessoa’s unfinished poems “Come sit beside me, Lydia, on the river’s bank” and “Have noth-ing in your hand”; nor did we attempt meter in rendering “To be great, be whole; nothing yours,” thinking that to do so would detract from its imperative force.

In “Salutation to Walt Whitman,” we translated Pessoa’s word Camarada, using Whitman’s own term Camerado.

Some readers might notice allusions to Keats, Coleridge, and the Bible—all prominent influences upon Pessoa.

We translated all poems into American English.

thought,” “Autopsychography,” “Initiation,” “O meadow, when at last I die,” “Who knows if what we think is not,” “This history you sal-vaged from”). Once, we abandoned rhyme altogether, judging it impossible, or at least imprudent to try (cf. “Swamps”). For these rare lapses, we console ourselves with the knowledge that our work boasts more—many more—rhymes than any existing English trans‑lation of Pessoa’s poetry. In one case, the relaxation of the rhyme scheme, in turn, necessitated a departure from the expected form (cf. “The Voice of God,” where the substitution of an ABCBDEFE rhyme scheme for the original ABABAB led, in consequence, to the addition of two lines to each of the two stanzas). In several instances, Pessoa’s irregular rhyme scheme, spread over lines and stanzas of irregular length, required us, in our search for suitable rhymes, to add lines while yet preserving the poem’s tenor (cf. “The Voice of God,” “Liberty,” “Oh poor little tyrant!,” “Un Soir à Lima”). The search for fit rhymes led in “Abdication” to a slight alteration in the rhyme scheme.

Iambic rhythm, with its alternation of unstressed and stressed syl‑lables, predominates in our translations, but anapests, consisting of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one, make frequent appearance, as well. We deploy these anapests either to achieve a special effect (cf. the chiasmic unfolding of the wavelike final line in “Sea. Morning.” or the slow, bell‑like rhythm of the second stanza of “The Villager”) or to avoid monotony. Where we use ana‑pests more liberally, freely mixing them with iambs, the rhythm approaches that of iambic‑anapestic—a rhythm popular with Hop‑kins, Tennyson, and Swinburne (cf. “The Voice of God,” “Barrel Organ,” “Abdication,” “Reaper,” “O you who pluck the harp, were I to kiss,” “Gomes Leal,” “In the river, beneath the moon”, “The roses that grow in Adoni’s gardens I love,” “Your flower, and not the one you give, I want,” “Almond herb that soothes the aching foot”). Just as we occa‑sionally lengthen lines, then, either for effect or for variety’s sake,

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F E R N A N D O PE S S OA

Finally, as Pessoa was a trilingual poet, so this is a trilingual anthology. While some ninety percent of the poems included here were originally written in Portuguese, two of the poems were orig‑inally written in French: “We were three… We were three…” and “This history you salvaged from.” Six of the poems Pessoa wrote in English, and so we did not translate them but rather present them here in their original language: “Sonnet VIII,” “Meantime,” “Painted,” “The happy sun is shining,” “The Fall of the Titan,” and “Justice.” To learn more about Pessoa’s English poetry, see the journals PLCS 28 and Pessoa Plu-ral 10.

John Pedro SchwartzRobert N. Schwartz

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S E A . MOR N I NG .

Softly big and flecked with raysMounts the sea‑wave to its crest,Yet pausing now and then it sways,And swaying, swoons as if to rest.

Like the glaucous breast that nursesA Titan’s offspring off to sleep,As to the breeze it pants and purses,So the wave does swell and sweep.

A sea‑quick creature, vision fooling,Its pulsive motion clearly shows,A green‑blue serpent softly spoolingAlong its axis as it goes.

Wine‑stained, vast, and fluid tableSpread beneath the warm tableau,Itself it moves, yet always stable,This ocean drunk on reddish glow.

A wave of pleasure or pain allaysMy senses. Now I cease to be…By alien ways it tilts and sways,The drunkenly undulant fulgurant sea.

16-11-1909

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N IG H T

O Night, just now recalled the darkened wombWhence issued all existence on this earth;O Night, the faithful spouse of sacred gloomThat gave the world to know the crime of birth;

O Night, relieve my weary soul of wantingTo believe; oh help my unbelief.Surround me now, enclose me… I am nothing,Merely one who in you wants relief.

O mother of mercy, ancient moonless Night,Take back the groundless void, this futile strifeWherein my soul does not itself delight.

Be my ultimate being! In lieu of breath,Give me something yet more mine than life,Give me something yet more yours than death.

5-3-1910

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T H E V I L L AG E R

O village bell at fall of dusk,1

That sounds the compline toll,Each mournful stroke that fans the calmResounds within my soul.

So slow is your rhythm in tolling the time,So laden with sadness in store,That always the opening stroke will revealThe sound of the stroke before.

However near your peals may ringWhen wand’ring I drift by,You’re like a dream to me, so farWithin me rings your cry.

With every measured stroke of yoursThat dream‑like I yet hear,I feel my past much farther off,My longing still more near.

8-4-1911

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F OU N TA I N

Fresh and keenThese lively jets,Vigor and vimTheir sound begets.

My yoke turns easy,My burden light,My strength resurgentRestores me to flight.

Calm fountain so pure,I give you my soul.In turn, give me yours,So fresh and so whole,

Now that the morningBegins to unfold,And makes you my sisterAnd colors us gold.

10-4-1912

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S ON N E T V I I I

How many masks wear we, and undermasks,Upon our countenance of soul, and when,If for self‑sport the soul itself unmasks,Knows it the last mask off and the face plain?The true mask feels no inside to the maskBut looks out of the mask by co‑masked eyes.Whatever consciousness begins the taskThe task’s accepted use to dulness ties.Like a child frighted by its mirrored faces,Our souls, that children are, being thought‑losing,Foist otherness upon their seen grimacesAnd get a whole world on their forgot causing;

And, when a thought would unmask our soul’s masking,Itself goes not unmasked to the unmasking.

[c. 29-5-1912]

[98‑1‑3‑2v]

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B IO G R A P H IC A L NOT E S B IO G R A P H IC A L NOT E S

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the authorFernando Pessoa (1888‑1935) is today Portugal’s principal literary link with the world. His work in verse and prose is the most plural imaginable, for it has multiple facets, materializes innumerable interests, and represents an authentic collective patrimony: of the author, of the diverse authorial fig‑ures invented by him, and of the read‑ers. Some of those personae—Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, and Álvaro de Campos—Pessoa called “heteronyms,”

reserving the designation “orthonym” for himself. The director of, and a col‑laborator on various literary magazines, the author of The Book of Disquiet, and, in everyday life, a “foreign correspond‑ent in commercial houses,” Pessoa left a universal oeuvre in three languages, one that has been edited and studied ever since he wrote, before dying, in Lisbon, “I know not what tomorrow will bring.”

the editorProfessor, translator, critic, and editor, Jerónimo Pizarro bears credit for the majority of the new editions and new series of texts by Fernando Pessoa pub‑lished in Portugal since 2006. Profes‑sor at the University of the Andes, Chair of Portuguese Studies at the Camões Institute in Columbia, and Eduardo Lourenço laureate (2013), Pizarro reo‑pened the Pessoan arks and rediscov‑ered “The Private Library of Fernando Pessoa,” to use the title of one of the books in his bibliography. He super‑vised Portugal’s participation in the International Book Fair of Bogotá, and for the past several years he has coordi‑nated the visit of Portuguese‑language authors to Columbia. He is the co‑ed‑

itor of the journal Pessoa Plural and is an assiduous organizer of colloquia and exhibitions. With Carlos Pittella, he wrote the book Como Fernando Pessoa Pode Mudar a Sua Vida [How Fernando Pessoa Can Change your Life] (2017), also published in Brazil. Since 2013 he has directed the Pessoa Collection, in Portugal and Brazil, which includes new editions of the complete works of Alberto Caeiro, Álvaro de Campos, and Ricardo Reis, of The Book of Disquiet, of Faust, of the dramatic works and polit‑ical writings of Pessoa, in addition to various essays on the Pessoan literary universe. Ler Pessoa [How to Read Pes-soa], a book‑length synthesis of the poet, is his most recent title.

the translatorsJohn Pedro Schwartz is Associate Pro‑fessor of English at the American Uni‑versity of Malta. He sits on the Edito‑rial Board of the journal Pessoa Plural. He has published scholarly articles on James Joyce, Henry James, Jorge Luis Borges, and Fernando Pessoa, as well as on the interstices of composition, media, and museum studies. He has co‑edited two books, Archives, Museums and Collecting Practices in the Modern Arab World (Routledge 2016) and Trans-Latin Joyce: Global Transmissions in Ibe-ro-American Literature (Palgrave 2014).

He has also taught at the American University of Beirut. While there, he seized the opportunity to return to his journalistic roots. Freelancing for For-eign Policy, he filed two comprehensive reports on the Syrian civil war. In a fur‑ther journalistic venture, he published a three‑part investigative series in War-scapes in April 2015, on the vigilante uprising against the Knights Templar drug cartel in Michoacán, Mexico. With his father, he is currently translating two further works by Pessoa, Prose—Minimal Anthology and Message.

Robert N. Schwartz has studied phi‑losophy at a seminary in Ohio, with the beginnings of his scholarly work on the Roman Empire at the American Academy in Rome through a Rockefel‑ler Foreign Language Fellowship. An Arthur Patch McKinley grant from the American Classical League allowed him to complete the chapters. Before that, he studied sociology at Calumet College of St. Joseph, with doctoral studies in Latin American history at Indiana Uni‑versity and at the University of Califor‑nia (UCLA), taking the Ph.D. at the Uni‑versity of Houston. An ardent student of the past, Dr. Schwartz has published on the Roman and Incan Empires for both the general public and students. He has

lived, studied, taught, and explored in both of these bygone empires and has taught on these subjects at all levels. In addition, he has dedicated many sum‑mers to the progress of the developing world through teaching adult literacy in Peru, where he has contributed articles to the Peruvian Times that reflect Peru’s Incan past. He has also done develop‑mental work with Helping Hands Med‑ical Missions in the Brazilian Amazon. Today, Dr. Schwartz publishes com‑mentary on contemporary issues in the United States and abroad through popular media, both digitally and in print. His dedication to historical and contemporary Peru continues to draw his attention.

P O E T R Y

M I N I M A L A N T HOL O G Y

by f e r n a n d o p e s s o awas set in filosofia and verlag, printed by guide, artes gráficas

on coral book, 80 gsm, in february 2020.